


Sleepless

by NeverwinterThistle



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Bondage, Kink Meme, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, The Outsider really just wants to be helpful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:38:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nights pass slowly in his tiny attic room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for [this prompt](http://dishonored-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/446.html?thread=307902#cmt307902) on the wonderful (and currently very quiet, seriously, please come and liven it up with prompts and things) Dishonored kink meme.  
> Brief note on the dubious consent warning- it's temporary, and full consent is given once the surprise wears off. I hope I've tagged it appropriately.

The nights pass slowly in his tiny attic room. Corvo measures them in the time it takes for his candles to burn down, the passing slivers of moonlight drifting a steady path across the floorboards he's wearing thin with pacing. The days drain him and still he does not sleep, when every creak and groan of weathered wood sounds so much like the lazy stretch of a jailer, just outside his cell.

 

There is no cell. There are no cracked graffiti-covered walls, there are no orange metal brands and vermin stealing scraps of meals. Corvo stalks his attic room, counts the steps from wall to wall and _knows_ there is no cell, and the odd clinks and clanks are Piero's work, and not a guardsman's boots patrolling. The sea is there, still where the wind does not touch it; he can stand at the window if he wishes, look at the water for as long as he wishes, and even swim in it, if he feels inclined to feed the hagfish with the ragged remains of his body.

 

It's the wrong side of midnight when Corvo surrenders, perching on the edge of his mattress (too lumpy in some places, and stiffer than wooden boards in others, though how this can be so escapes him) and running a weary hand through his hair. It's getting too long; if not for his mask he'd have cut it for safety's sake, but Emily likes it this way and tells him it is better. As if vanity were something he should care about. Coldridge's fires and knives and screws have done their job, and well; there's little left to be vain _of_ anymore. Corvo lies back and sets to counting scars.

 

He starts, stops; sighs.

 

"What do you want?" There is a figure at the end of the bed. He wears the shadows like an elegant cloak, though the night chill won't touch him. Compassion is beyond this one's reach, but he has never been above vanity.

 

"Still awake, Corvo?" The Outsider clasps his hands behind his back and looms, and Corvo doesn't sit up to lessen the imbalance. "Dawn lurks just over the horizon, and with it will come new challenges, new tasks to which you will turn your hand. Succeed or die; you will get no second chances." The shadow tilts its head. "You should rest."

 

"The difference between 'should' and 'can' is that only one of them applies to me. I _can't_ sleep." Corvo keeps petulance at bay and finds it replaced with something else, something jagged and distasteful. "Haven't you got other people to bother?"

 

"None like you."

 

He drifts, like the wisps in folklore that light up marshes and lead travellers to slow and tragic deaths. There are no footsteps on the floorboards as he rounds the bed, and still Corvo doesn't move, though the hairs on the back of his neck stand like soldiers to attention.

 

"I don't see how my sleep patterns are any of your business," he says idly. The Outsider stops short by the bedside and blinks down at him.

 

"I have no wish to see you fall before a stray blade or bullet, Corvo. You were marked for greater things. So many futures I see ahead of you, and each one burns with wildfire brightness, glorious and agonising...And all require that you be alert enough to see them realised." This time he's the petulant one, though it's plain he is making his best attempt at being reasonable. Corvo turns his head away.

 

"Sorry to disappoint, but fiery destinies aren't on the agenda. All I want is to fix things. Restore the balance, bring the Empress home." He shuffles the too-thin pillow irritably. "Burning Dunwall down for your amusement is not a practical way to achieve that."

 

He tries not to flinch as the mattress dips down at his back. It must be voluntary, this aspect of manifestation. Does he pick and choose the things that please him? Soundless footsteps, but the vaguely warm weight against Corvo's spine is eerily human in its shape; he regrets the choice to sleep unclothed. More freedom in the night air, an attempt to beat his overcautious instincts into submission. The rough sheets keep him warm enough, but he had not accounted for the touch of a leather coat; a buckle brushes his skin and he jumps at cold metal. _Too_ real, and unnerving besides.

 

"What do you _want_?"

 

"When Emily cannot sleep, Callista Curnow tells her stories," the Outsider announces. "Sometimes they are _proper_ tales, of noblewomen and merchants' wives, and common girls who never think to rise above their destined stations." He mocks them, his voice lightly tinged with scorn like the brush of a master painter. Just enough to speak volumes. "Other times she gives in to the child's pleas and tells her stories with pirates and bandits and outlaws. I could recite one, if you'd like."

 

Corvo tugs the sheet a little higher over his shoulder. "Not interested."

 

"Sometimes she sings." The sheet is removed from between his fingers and slides away as a hand replaces it. Warm, real, shockingly human; it comes to rest on a too-prominent shoulder blade, and stays there. He must know how frightening the contact feels. "Odd things, songs she learnt from her uncle the soldier, and from the sailors she tailed as a child. She changes the words a bit, of course."

  
"I should hope so."

 

"Would you like to hear? Emily has a favourite, about-"

 

"You are _not_ singing me to sleep."

 

Silence falls between them. The wind whistles through nooks and crannies in their aging wooden walls, and in the distance Piero continues his nocturnal adventures. Something smashes; Corvo wonders what the Outsider is driving the poor man to create, this time. He wonders if he wants to know.

 

His own breathing is loud in the absence of the Outsider's, but the hand on his shoulder has not moved, and he feels no more inclined to sleep that he does to bathe in the harbour. If nothing else, at least he is still sane.

 

"Martin recites the Strictures when he cannot sleep," the Outsider says abruptly, and Corvo smothers a groan. "I suppose you might find that somewhat inappropriate; unnecessary, of course. I would not take offence."

 

"Can't you shut up?"

 

"Cecelia goes for walks. But you do that already, so the point is moot. Wallace and Lydia sleep as soon as they retire." His tone lifts slightly in question, and Corvo answers on the off-chance that he will be satisfied and leave.

 

"They've been servants all their lives, they're accustomed to long days and making the most of what little peace they get."

 

"That seems a useful habit to cultivate," the Outsider says pointedly. Corvo tries to elbow him in the side without moving too much, and receives only a sigh in return.

 

"Lord Pendleton visits the Golden Cat, when his mind is least at rest."

 

Corvo weighs that information in silence, before deciding he must know. "That's where his brothers were last, before I...had them moved. Doesn't the thought worry him?"

 

"He draws a peculiar pleasure from duplicating their last actions, and pays extra for encounters with the same women whose company the twins enjoyed."

 

The thought is not a pleasant one, and Corvo says so. "I don't understand how that could help him sleep any better." It would be like going back to Coldridge as a free man, choosing to sleep in his lonely cell and bribing a guard to abuse him for the memories. He shudders unwillingly, and the Outsider hums.

 

"An odd sentiment, perhaps, but that is not what helps him sleep."

 

The sheet is thrown from Corvo's body in one quick movement; he makes the mistake of rolling onto his back to protest, and finds himself pinned. A knee on either side of his bare hips, and black eyes wide with interest above him.

 

"Get off me," Corvo says quietly, dangerously. He breathes in deep to ease the pressure in his chest that comes from feeling _trapped_ , held in place by a weight that will not budge, however he bucks against it.

 

"No," the Outsider replies. Corvo goes to punch him; he gets no further than the thought before his wrists are seized by something cold and unyielding. They're dragged back, stretched out above his head. He arches his neck to follow them and sees-

the bed's metal frame, come alive to twine like unforgiving ivy, twisting his hands together. They will not budge, however he pulls, and when he flexes the fingers on his left hand and _focuses_ , the Mark lights up...and fades.

 

"That won't work on _me_ , Corvo," the Outsider says serenely, and Corvo glares daggers up at his smile.

 

"You let me go _now_."

 

"I don't think so." He runs a palm down Corvo's chest, seemingly fascinated by the curve of bone and yield of flesh, the unwilling shiver of a body that's spent much too long on the receiving end of violence. Corvo has forgotten what gentle means, and if he arches up against the hands that stroke him like a thing of _value_ , it's hardly something he can be blamed for. Except, of course, he will blame himself, as he always does.

 

"I don't know what you're doing-" he tugs on the frame again, but it has solidified around his skin and will not yield. "-but it has to stop. Release me, or I swear, I'll..." The flaw in his threats presents itself immediately, and the Outsider chuckles. A human sound, as if he understood how amusement feels.

 

"Are you afraid of me, my dear? That's strange. Of all the people in this lonely den of schemes and secrets, I am the last who would wish you any harm. You bear my mark. That makes you...precious."

 

"You're not a person," Corvo says, horrified to feel his cheeks flushing red in the dark. He has no doubt the Outsider will see, though whether or not he understands... "I hadn't realised you were interested in something so mundane. Surely you've seen others-" but he chokes on the words, he is _better than this_ , better than a fumble in the dark with a shadow-man who measures time in fallen empires. He doesn't need this.

 

"I have," the Outsider tells him. His hands pause, one on Corvo's hip, the other on his chest. Over his heartbeat. "But not you. Though you have had your chances; Lydia pursues you, Martin considers pursuing you, and Havelock would willingly do a great many things to keep you loyal."

 

He could have happily lived the rest of his life without knowing this, but Corvo finds it difficult to take serious offense when the Outsider is set on being earnest. He recounts it all with no more care than he might give to describing phases of the moon, or migratory patterns of whales. And if answering the unasked question will make him leave, Corvo is happy to be obliging.

 

"I suppose it's been so long, I wanted- I'd hoped the next time would mean something." Too much to hope that the Outsider might understand if he tried to explain the dreams he conjured in Coldridge; flickering fires to warm his soul. Banquets and unhindered walks on the Wrenhaven's banks. Human contact without human cruelty. How badly he'd wanted to be _held_. He can't explain and settles for, "At the very least I imagined a partner who cared, even just a little."

 

The Outsider tilts his head. One long finger presses into Corvo's chest, apparently fascinated by the steady _thump_ of his heart. "How do you measure affection, Corvo? And whose could outweigh mine? I have matched your every step across filthy streets and creaking rooftops, crawled through mired sewage tunnels at your heels and kept the rats at bay. I have watched you suffer and fall, stand and triumph. I gave you my mark. In the coming chaotic days I alone will never leave you. Tell me, do I care enough? What more could you have imagined?"

 

Corvo tugs at the restrains, the metal biting his skin, breaking whatever spell the Outsider's voice weaves in his mind. "You certainly like to hear yourself talk," he says gruffly, and the Outsider laughs.

 

"Only because you like to hear me. And you do, don't you? How efficient you are in hunting down each and every shrine devoted to me. How methodical-"

 

"The runes are useful," Corvo snaps. "The price for that just so happens to be having to listen to _you_."

 

"Yes, my dear," the Outsider says serenely. He leans in close until their noses brush, and his breath is warm against Corvo's cheeks. "But I think you will find that I too can be useful."

 

He kisses with none of the uncertainty Corvo would have expected, had he ever devoted time to imagining a situation like this one. No taste of salt or anything for that matter, but his mouth is as warm as his hands, and just as inquisitive. It would be easy enough to close his eyes and pretend that this strange creature is someone else, _anyone_ else (and with a flash of insight, Corvo wonders if this is intentional, the way the Outsider's skin smells of nothing at all but feels so very real, the way he makes no attempt at asserting individuality), but he doesn't. There _is_ no one else.

 

At least the Outsider won't laugh when this is over embarrassingly quickly.

 

Had he been blindfolded, he would never have known the hands running down his chest - _tips of nails scraping over his nipples, and Corvo hisses-_ to be anything other than human. But it will be a long time before he trusts anyone to take his sight, even if it would make this easier. Easier not to look down the length of his own body and watch the Outsider gift him new marks, bites on the battered skin over his ribs. Easier not to see the dark fringe fall over black eyes and long to push it aside.

 

Corvo has only ever been human.

 

"Let me go," he says (begs, maybe, but in the end it doesn't really matter), "I'd like to- return the favour." The Outsider tilts his head infuriatingly and breathes over Corvo's ribs.

 

"No," he says simply. "You are much more interesting like this, I think."

 

"I swear, I'll neglect your shrines entirely next time. The runes can just-" but he has to stop, choking back his own gasp with gritted teeth, as the Outsider runs one long-fingered hand down the length of his cock. A careful touch, not inexperienced so much as inquisitive. At some point in his countless years of existence, it seems the Outsider picked up the idea of _preferences_. This, the creature who sees futures and still thinks it acceptable to tie people up with bedframes.

 

He does it again and Corvo's breath hitches.

 

"You can be..." he clears his throat, "a bit rougher. If you want. Just like- _yes_ , oh yes, like that-" And this isn't what he imagined for himself in Coldridge, but Corvo can't honestly say that it's worse. His wrists ache, rubbed raw already, and the Outsider's hand is a bit too rough, but it doesn't matter. He doesn't care. Black eyes watch his face unblinkingly but the Outsider's smile is almost warm. Corvo takes a deep, shuddering breath and lets his muscles relax. Lets a little tension seep from his shoulders and his hands and his heart.

 

"Better?" the Outsider asks, and this time it's Corvo's turn to smile.

 

"We'll see." He eases his legs apart a fraction. It isn't meant as a suggestion and he would never have asked, but there is a brush of fringe against his abdomen - _he wouldn't, would he? Would he actually-_ and he's back to fighting the restraints, fighting to keep from arching off the bed as the Outsider's mouth closes over his cock. He can't keep his groan silent; it rings out too loud in the attic room.

 

The Outsider hums approval, and Corvo muffles a response. He is never loud, never vocal in any situation, but he can't seem to make himself _stop_.

 

The bed creaks in time with the tug of his bound hands and the jerk of his hips. Corvo's face feels hot; he fixes his eyes to the pockmarked ceiling and breathes. Ragged, broken up by choked-off moans. He feels the Outsider take him in deep, flicking his tongue over the head of Corvo's cock as he does, and _shudders_.

 

"Fuck," he says, more loudly than intended. The Outsider hums again; Corvo screws his eyes shut. If he doesn't watch, if he can't see, maybe it'll be easier. If he can just silence the half-human noises that keep tearing themselves from his throat-

 

The Outsider releases him without warning, and Corvo exhales, protests incoherently. Then there is a hand reaching out to touch his cheek, fingers rubbing gently over his stubble. The Outsider's weight shifts on his thighs.

 

"May I?" he asks.

 

Corvo feels the scrape of cloth and leather vanish from his legs; he opens his eyes to the Outsider's smile and bone-pale form, unabashedly naked. For a moment all he can do is stare, stare and wonder at the slope of the Outsider's bare shoulders, the dusting of hair on his forearms, the mess of his fringe. Then the question registers.

 

"What did you have in mind?" He swallows loudly and hopes his silent _yes, whatever you've set your strange heart on is fine, do whatever pleases you_ remains tucked out of sight and hearing. Not that it matters; he is beyond subtlety now. His cock lies heavy against his abdomen, and something warm trickles slowly down his bound wrists. But there isn't any pain. Corvo rolls his hips impatiently, rutting up against the Outsider's thigh.

 

"You are so much more patient when you hunt your enemies," the Outsider observes. "Why is that, I wonder? Could it be that you-"

 

Corvo makes a sound of frustration. "Whatever it is that you want, the answer is _yes_ , alright? _Yes_ , touch me where and how you please, but don't start another speech, for pity's sake."

 

"Oh Corvo," the Outsider says. "I very much enjoy you like this. You never once begged in Coldridge prison, but here... Here you beg, and you are so lovely when you do so." A smile, sudden and bright. Almost playful. "I chose well with you, my dear."

 

He eases forward, a thigh on either side of Corvo's hips. Corvo feels his breath catch again, his heartbeat pounding; the Outsider rests a hand over it and meets Corvo's eyes.

 

The Outsider's other hand is back on his cock, stroking him into aching hardness (but his fingers are slick all of a sudden, far too much to be saliva alone, and for the longest moment Corvo doesn't understand). Then he eases himself down and Corvo throws his head back to groan.

 

_He's hot on the inside, almost unbearably tight, but there is only a smile on his pale face and Corvo has to force himself still, not to thrust up and lose himself in the body of a god._

 

Almost hypnotised, Corvo watches the Outsider blink slowly above him, head tilted curiously. He rocks his hips, his odd smile widening.

 

" _Perfect_ ," he breathes, and Corvo laughs. He can't stop himself, and the sound is nowhere near calm.

 

"Referring to me or yourself?"

 

"Is there a difference now?" the Outsider asks. Corvo has no answer for him, but he seems satisfied anyway. Another roll of his hips and he takes Corvo in deep-

 

words don't matter after that. Corvo _howls_.

 

Afterwards, he lies back stunned, and the Outsider releases his hands from their metal cuffs. Corvo goes to rub his wrists only to find them undamaged, painless. It makes sense, he'd be far less efficient with bandaged, bloody wrists, but he feels a pang of gratitude anyway. The Outsider ignores his thanks (hoarse, his throat still raw). He hasn't bothered to make his clothing reappear, sits cross-legged at Corvo's hip, trailing long fingers over his ribs.

 

Corvo hunts for something to say and comes up short. "Where did you _learn_ that?" he settles for, and regrets it immediately. _Let it not be from Granny Rags_. The Outsider shrugs.

 

"I did mention being older than the rocks beneath this city, did I not? And this is hardly a matter of any great complexity."

 

Corvo blinks up at him, trying not to feel too offended. "If it's boring, then why bother?"

 

"I never said it was boring. Nothing to do with you is _boring_ , Corvo." He looks inordinately pleased with himself. The contrast to his usual monotone is nothing short of disturbing. "And you make the most entertaining sounds."

 

The third floor is boarded up and empty, Corvo tells himself firmly. Nobody downstairs will have heard, and while the windows are wide open, Piero makes plenty of noise by himself, and Emily's room has a sturdy door. Unless Samuel decided on a night time wander...He shakes his head in resignation. It's late, probably to the point of being early _,_ and Corvo doesn't care. His eyelids are heavy, and the scratchy sheet isn't that irritating after all.

 

He closes his eyes and breathes in deep, old wood and clean linen and the long-leafed plants that live on the water's banks.

 

"Next time," he hears the Outsider say quietly. "I will sing to you afterwards. My favourite one has pirates."

 

 _I don't care_ , Corvo thinks dimly, and sleeps.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Sleepless](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6606259) by [Kess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kess/pseuds/Kess)




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